For most of the last century the methodology of art history has followed a positivist approach, emphasizing form and style, fact and history as the means of studying works of art. By contrast the philosophical pursuit of truth, once central to the fine arts and humanities has largely been abandoned. In For The Love of Beauty, Arthur Pontynen offers a searching and ambitious critique of modern aesthetic practice that aims to restore the pursuit of the knowledge of reality--Being--to its rightful place.
Pontynen begins by addressing the question of why the pursuit of truth (be...
For most of the last century the methodology of art history has followed a positivist approach, emphasizing form and style, fact and history as the...
The decline of interest in the liberal and fine arts is widely lamented. At issue is why this decline happened and how we might restore qualitative standards by which to live. Arthur Pontynen argues that cultural decline is the consequence of a tragically anti-intellectual academic tradition--and its alternative is the cosmopolitan pursuit of wisdom and beauty.
Pontynen writes that the liberal and fine arts are justified by their attempt to understand the material realization of wisdom, of that which is true and good in reality and life. The current decline marks a denial that such...
The decline of interest in the liberal and fine arts is widely lamented. At issue is why this decline happened and how we might restore qualitative...
